The Partial Lunar Eclipse Full Moon of Gemini-Sagittarius 2012 Pt. 1 - It's The Blessing of the ChristFest

by Robert Wilkinson

The Full Moon of Sun in Gemini and Moon in Sagittarius is is the third of the "High Moons" occurring each Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, a time when the World Teacher, a.k.a. "the Christ," pours forth new forms of loving-wisdom into the world that offers all a great leap forward in awareness of Higher things.

The 3 High Moons begin at the Aries-Libra Full Moon of Spring. The life arising then takes shape in a wisdom form of the "Eternal Buddha Nature" at the next Full Moon in Taurus-Scorpio, known as the Wesak Festival. At this third High Moon the World Teacher takes that wisdom and infuses it with the Loving magnetism so that all may become more lovingly wise and wisely loving according to the lesson of the year.

This magnetism is then distributed to the entire world, where it influences the next 9 months. To find out more about the energies of the recent Wesak Festival of 2012, please check out the articles on the 2012 Taurus-Scorpio Full Moon Wesak Festival at the end of this post.

Because this is the Christ Fest, this Full Moon is where the "World Teacher" distributes the wisdom poured out at the Wesak Festival, we can expect a new world teaching appropriate to human needs to come forth over the next two weeks as well as the next 12 months. The qualities of the "3 High Moons" are active for a longer span than all the other Full Moons of the year.

As a result of the recent Solar Eclipse at 1 Gemini and this Lunar Eclipse at 15 Sagittarius, we have entered a period where we are shutting down old Gemini energies and growing toward new Sagittarius energies. Let go of old ideas and interpretations, and be pulled into broader views, broader truths, broader understanding, and broader futures. When in doubt remember that a sense of humor solves many mental problems.

Since all Eclipses shut something down, this very bright Partial Lunar Eclipse begins a several month "shut down" in the houses it occupies in our charts. Given that it happens during Neptune stationary retrograde just before the Venus occultation with the Sun and this Full Moon makes a powerful Mutable T-square with Mars in Virgo, there will be tremendous changes portended over the next 4 1/2 months, with planets in mid-Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius most affected. I’ll discuss this more in the next articles on this Lunar Eclipse.

We had a prelude to what's happening in this one in the Lunar Eclipse of December 2011, which released the power of the previous Solar Eclipse of November 2011 in Sagittarius. Both of these Eclipses began to release or demonstrate patterns directly associated with both the recent Gemini Solar Eclipse of two weeks ago, as well as this Lunar Eclipse.

So like most Lunar Eclipses, this one ushers in a transitional period of several months (this one will be in effect for 4 1/2 months) that will clear things out of our lives, and especially our past (the Moon). The space created can attract circumstances and people through which we can develop skills helping us deal with the wild ride of The Grand Irrationality that's in continuous motion during these months and years.

The June 2011 Solar Eclipse at 12 Gemini sent the Grand Irrationality into intense oscillation that still is helping all of us release ghosts from the past so that we can move forward without excess psychological (and maybe physical!) baggage. This Lunar Eclipse also triggers the Grand Irrationality, as the Sun is biseptile Neptune at the Full Moon. It’s triseptile Pluto right now, so we’ve definitely hit a major fork in the road wherever we have those 7 zones of the configuration in our charts. I’ll also discuss more about this in Lunar Eclipse articles coming over the next few days.

The June 2011 Lunar Eclipse “Christ Fest” occurred at 25 Sagittarius. In an interesting coincidence, Venus in that Lunar Eclipse was at 8 Gemini, the exact degree it will go stationary direct on June 27, 2012. So there are some coincident energies between the Gemini and Sagittarius Solar and Lunar Eclipses of 2011 and those that are happening this year.

The clearances we began in July 2010 anticipated the bigger, longer-term endings set into motion at the Solar Eclipse in January 2011. However, the big news of last year was the June 1, 2011 Solar Eclipse in Gemini. These Solar Eclipses will be helping shut things down for years.

At the bottom of this article I’ve include links to last year’s Gemini Solar Eclipse, as well as the Lunar Eclipse Christ Fest that followed shortly after. When you’re done here, please check them out, since they may give a sense of what we can expect from this Lunar Eclipse, as well as the recent Solar Eclipse two weeks ago.

The first lunar eclipse of 2012 occurs at the Moon's ascending node in southern Ophiuchus about 6° northeast of Antares. It is best seen from locations in and near the Pacific Ocean. Most of the Americas will experience moonset before the eclipse ends while eastern Asia will miss the beginning of the eclipse because it occurs before moonrise. The Moon's contact times with Earth's shadows are listed below.

Penumbral Eclipse Begins: 08:48:09 UT

Partial Eclipse Begins: 09:59:53 UT

Greatest Eclipse: 11:03:13 UT

Partial Eclipse Ends: 12:06:30 UT

Penumbral Eclipse Ends: 13:18:17 UT

At the instant of greatest eclipse the umbral eclipse magnitude will reach 0.3705. At that time the Moon will be at the zenith for observers in the South Pacific. In spite of the fact that just a third of the Moon enters the umbral shadow (the Moon's southern limb dips 12.3 arc-minutes into the umbra), the partial phase still lasts over 2 hours.

... New England and eastern Canada will miss the entire eclipse since the event begins after moonset from those regions. Observers in western Canada and the USA will have the best views with moonset occurring sometime after mid-eclipse. To catch the entire event, one must be located in the Pacific or eastern Australia.

The table below gives times of each phase of the eclipse for various time zones in North America and Hawaii.

So because the Eclipse lasts 4 hours and 30 minutes, it will show effects for 4 1/2 months, and it seems that those getting the light show have to live in Western Canada, California, Hawaii, and eastern Australia. These areas will be most affected by this Eclipse, along with the Mutable degree areas noted earlier, which I’ll go into more in the next articles in this series.

In Parts 2 and 3 we'll explore the Ascendants around the world, the qualities of the Eclipse, the Sabian Symbols, the aspects, configurations, and other specifics of this powerful Partial Lunar Eclipse Full Moon “Christ Fest” in Gemini-Sagittarius. Check back in tomorrow!

Here's an overview of some important factors in play at this Lunar Eclipse:

LE conjunct my IC at 14 sag. The energy already builds up at the nadir of the horoscope, a lot of synchronistic events, it feels like the old academic has to leave the cave and go out into the world to offer!